Category: Reviews – Concerts

First of a fine series of French symphonic organ works, from Douglas Mews

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

L’Orgue symphonique: French organ music in the symphonic tradition

César Franck: Pièce symphonique, Lento and Sortie from ‘L’organiste’; Chorale No 2 in B minor; Pastorale from ‘Six pièces’; Cantabile and Pièce héroique from ‘Trois pièces’

Douglas Mews at the organ of the
Church of Saint Mary of the Angels

Sunday 3 July, 2.30pm

In a celebration of the legacy of the church’s great organist Maxwell Fernie, Saint Mary’s is presenting three recitals by three organists of French symphonic organ music. This was the first, devoted to the founder of a tradition that set a new path for organ music which continues to
the present day.

It arose through the arrival of a composer whose instincts led him away from the emphasis on opera in the France of the early 19th century, to the rediscovery of the choral music of the Renaissance and Bach and of the German symphonic tradition.

The other contributor to the blossoming of organ music and its performance from around 1850 was the advent of the great organ builder Cavaillé-Coll: Franck was appointed principal organist at the Marais church of Saint-Jean-Saint-François in 1853 where Cavaillé-Coll’s new organ astonished and delighted him. That church is now the Cathédrale-Sainte-Croix-des-Armeniens, and its website records that it houses two organs by Cavaillé-Coll, one of them built in 1844 – certainly the one that Franck played. I have heard chamber music and vocal concerts there but have not heard the organ. 

The programme notes say that he earlier encountered a Cavaillé-Coll organ in the church of Notre Dame de Lorette; that was certainly his first organist post, but it is not clear that the church had a Cavaillé-Coll organ; that church’s website makes no mention of one. In 1858 he became principal organist at the new church of Sainte-Clotilde with its magnificent Cavaillé-Coll instrument and remained there the rest of his life. 

The recital began with three early pieces from a large collection, L’organiste. Pièce symphonique, was an extrovert piece in very four-square military tempo in its outer parts  in which Mews used
suitably brash stops, contrasted with a gentle middle section. The Lento movement and the Sortie were offered no more than hints of the great organ works that were to follow, though Mews’s imaginative registrations made the most of them.

The second of the three Chorales written in his last year was the most important work of the recital. The chorales do not enjoy the strong melodic character of some of his music, and their success depends greatly on the colours that the organist can create from the combinations of stops that he can contrive; Mews familiarity with Maxwell Fernie’s in-some-ways idiosyncratic masterpiece allowed him to move from one phase to the next, from the boisterous to the pastoral to the heroic, with dynamics and colourings that were always immaculate.

The Pastorale of almost 30 years earlier is one of the most familiar of his works – I think my LP including a performance by Jeanne Demessieux was one of the first organ discs I bought aged about 20: I am chastened by Mews’s reference to its being in an ‘easy-listening’ style. Nevertheless, it wears well, especially in such an affectionate, subtle performance.

The ‘Three Pieces’ were written for the inauguration in 1878 of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Trocadero (across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, built ten years later). The Cantabile enjoys a vivid melody on loud reed stops that, like most of Franck’s tunes, ranges over a quite narrow compass. The last item was the Pièce héroique, played with splendid vitality and timbale colour, the raucous pedal stops perhaps a little indiscreet but perhaps intended mocking and undoubtedly arresting. 

As a totally inappropriate aside, it stuck me as odd that in Mews’s well-recorded, 2010  CD in Priory Record’s Great Australasian Organs series, he included no French music in a programme that in itself I find less than interesting, and which to me hardly displays the Wellington Town Hall Organ in the sort of important repertoire that does either player or organ proper justice.

Wellington Chamber Orchestra with Emma Sayers in Mozart

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Debussy: Petite Suite (‘En bateau’, ‘Cortège’, ‘Minuet’, and ‘Ballet’)
Mozart: Piano concerto no.25 in C, K.503 (allegro maestoso; andante; allegretto)
Brahms: Symphony no.2, Op.73 (allegro non troppo; adagio non troppo; allegretto grazioso
(quasi andantino); allegro con spirito) 

Wellington Chamber Orchestra, Emma Sayers (piano), conducted by Kenneth Young

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 3 July 2011,2.30pm

Another ambitious programme from Wellington’s major amateur orchestra was this time conducted by a leading and very experienced musician. His encouraging attitude was very apparent, and the orchestra responded well. Although this orchestra is named a chamber orchestra, it more often these days plays works for symphony orchestra, as in this programme.

Debussy’s Petite Suite, originally written for piano in the late 1880s, was arranged for full orchestra by Henri Busser (1872-1973). This delightful work is in four movements, each with music clearly illustrative of its title, the rocking of the boat in the first movement being the most obvious. The marching band in the second reminds the audience that it is a procession (only in English is the word cortège used solely for a funeral procession), while after the lovely minuet, the ballet is of an extremely energetic kind.

The first movement featured interesting and enchanting interplay between harp and flutes, in which a young harpist revealed a high level of competence. Throughout, the music was tuneful, joyous, varied, and unveiled the splendid orchestration. The brass finally got to contribute in the bouncy final movement. The playing was not faultless, but the band gave a good account of this attractive work.

The Mozart piano concerto called for a smaller orchestra, there being no harp, no clarinets, only one flute and fewer strings.

Emma Sayers played strongly, but with plenty of subtlety and light and shade, and a fine, light touch, appropriate for Mozart. At all times she played with clarity, as befits this composer.
The cadenza for the first movement was written by conductor and composer Kenneth Young. He made very appealing use of Mozart’s themes. This cadenza was not showy for the sake of it, but did incorporate some un-Mozartean harmonies to betray its recent origin.
After it, Young gave Sayers an appreciative smile.

In the andante there was much exposed playing for winds. The horns did not always come out of this successfully – a difficult instrument indeed (and presumably even more difficult if the musicians had been playing the valve-less horns of Mozart’s time). The sound was often rather heavy for the rest of the orchestra to compete with. The flute played frequently in concert with the oboes, making a most attractive sound.

While it is good to see children in the audience at an orchestral concert (no doubt they were family members of the players), it is a pity their carers think it necessary to give them sweets with noisy wrappers to rustle when the orchestra is playing something as delicate as the andante in Mozart’s concerto, thus interfering with audience members’ enjoyment.

The winds were able to let fly in the last movement, and they acquitted themselves well.

The final work in this appealing programme was a massive one. Perhaps this great symphony was a little too difficult for the orchestra. Intonation problems struck at the beginning: unfortunately the opening was not the horns’ best moment; later they had some better ones. There were four horns,
three trombones, and tuba. In the louder part of the second movement, and elsewhere, this brass choir was rather too noisy for the rest of the orchestra. The solo oboe theme in the third movement was beautifully played, as was the whole of that movement.

Trombones also had moments of difficulty, but they and the tuba came into their own in the last section of the last movement; they had plenty of power in the fortissimo passages. However, this venue is not really large enough to take the sound of a symphony orchestra playing at that level with modern brass instruments.

All of that said, the work developed well, and the extra strings contributed to a mainly admirable sonority in that department. Details and themes came through well, and syncopation at the end of the first movement and in the second movement was crisp and clear.

It was good to see and hear an amateur orchestra alive and well, and playing fine music. Obviously this was not a performance at professional level, but it was creditable nonetheless. Aberrations of intonation were the main problem; dynamics, themes, rhythm were all well observed, and the concert represented a considerable achievement.

Earthly and Heavenly Delights from the Historical Arts Trust

Posted on by Peter Mechen

LA MUSICA – Sacra II

Earthly Delight, Heavenly Respite

The Historical Arts Trust

Music by CORELLI and HANDEL

Pepe Becker (soprano)

Gregory Squire (baroque violin) / Katrin Eickhorst-Squire (baroque ‘cello) / Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

St. Mary of the Angels Church, Wellington

Saturday 2nd July 2011

Formed in 2010, the Historical Arts Trust was set up by a group of enthusiasts involved in the disciplines of early music, theatre and dance, in order to promote interest in Medieval, Renaissance and baroque music, dance and drama in New Zealand. The aim of the Trust is to present concerts and other events such as workshops and demonstrations which showcase these highly distinctive eras, and will encourage wider awareness and involvement on the part of performers and audiences.

Dimitrios Theodoridis, well-known as a versatile singer with period vocal groups, was appointed the Trust’s first Executive Director, and was instrumental in co-ordinating the group’s first workshop, in April 2011, taken with students from both St.Patrick’s and St.Catherine’s Colleges here in Wellington, and featuring also the talents of musicians Robert Oliver, Brendan O’Donnell and Stephen Pickett. The students were able to experience the authentic sounds of renaissance music and its performance, and discuss what they heard with the musicians.

The group’s first concert, Risurrezione, which took place in May,  got the series, “La Musica”, off to an exciting beginning with the music of Biber, JS Bach and Buxtehyde. The considerable instrumental skills of Gregory Squire, Douglas Mews and Robert Oliver each played a vital part supporting the glorious singing of soprano Pepe Becker and bass David Morriss. It all promised well for the events to follow, and special interest accompanied the first of these, which featured two of the Baroque era’s most spectacular composer/performers, Arcangelo Corelli and Georg Friedrich Handel.

Stories of the rivalry between the two composers, arising from their encounters in Rome, have gone into the realms of musical legend, the most well-known one being Handel’s deliberate placement of a high E in a sonata of his that Corelli was due to perform, after the latter had avowed never to write – or perform – such a note. Despite the resulting stand-off causing a never-to-be-healed breach between the two composers, Handel wasn’t slow to recognize the popular appeal of the “Italian style” and thus adopt his own potent realization of it in his own works. The concert thus gave us a chance to further the “cheek-by-jowl” interaction of the two composers’ music, albeit playing to different respective creative “strengths”, Corelli’s with some of his instrumental sonatas, and Handel with his famous set of German Arias for soprano.

How eloquently the instrumentalists stirred the silences into life with the opening of the first of Corelli’s Op.5 Violin Sonatas! – the Grave opening marvellously punctuated by energized irruptions, the tones held and savored by the church’s grateful ambience. Greg Squire’s violin confidently led the dance, while Katrin Eickhorst-Squire’s ‘cello seemed a more “contained” though always reliable consort. In attendance, too was Douglas Mews’ ever-tasteful continuo, finding a just balance between expression and discretion in support of the violin. For a time, the combination jelled more consistently in the slower movements, during which the instrumentalists conjured up exquisitely-voiced and -balanced sounds; whereas the allegros found the string-playing a touch off-centre in intonation and more wispy in tone than was ideal – as the evening progressed, so did the playing focus more truly and consistently.

Interspersed throughout the concert with Handel’s seven German Arias we heard two further instrumental sonatas from Corelli’s Op.5 – No.9 in A Major made a nice contrast with its secular dance movements as opposed to the opening work’s more formal “churchy’ structure, longish slow movements set against virtuosic allegros and fugues. Particularly noteworthy (excuse the pun) was the performance of the Gavotte from this sonata, decorated busily with running passagework that kept the players on their toes, although the playing never lost sight of the underlying dance rhythms, the ‘cello and harpsichord working as hard as Gregory Squire’s violin throughout this work.

Fittingly, the most famous of the Op. 5 set was also represented, the D Minor Sonata No.12 being a theme and variations on the well-known La Follia. This was a glittering display of music-making form all concerned, very exciting and physical in effect, with the ‘cello given as much to do, it seemed, as the violin. Corelli’s inventiveness seemed unflagging, including many unpredictable and volatile moments, a world of ebb and flow that these performers took unto themselves without hesitation – though the playing wasn’t absolutely note-perfect, it was the energy and drive of the virtuoso irruptions set against the more poised and dignified episodes that triumphantly carried the listener’s attention throughout.

It made excellent musical sense to ring the changes between instrumental and vocal items throughout the evening. Pepe Becker was in her usual fine vocal fettle, though I couldn’t help thinking that, on this showing, her voice seemed in places somehow less comfortable with this repertoire than with the Renaissance and earlier Baroque works we’d recently heard her perform so magnificently. It’s a voice that floats and fills out melismatic contouring with the utmost beauty, of the kind that abounds in more florid music than this – here, in Handel’s more tightly-conceived figurations I noticed a blurring of the coloratura lines exacerbated by the ample acoustic which took away some of the music’s clarity in quicker passages as well as most of the singer’s consonants! Having said this, Becker made some lovely sounds, the opening Süsse Stille particularly successful, especially in the voice’s combination with the instruments. Apart from some sightly uncomfortable intonation at the end of the the aria’s middle section, the following Singe, Seele, Gott sum Preise just as successfully conveyed the music’s essence, energetic and joyful.

In the next bracket of two arias, Flammende Rose was beautifully shaped by the performers, the structure most satisfyingly “built up” by the composer,and rendered here with appropriately sonorous singing and playing. I thought the opening of Künft’ger Zeiten either Kummer (Vain care of times to come) with its low tessitura difficult for the soprano voice, but the succeeding episode featured some exquisite work, with beautifully-held notes from the singer. Two further arias immediately after the interval featured, firstly, Süsser Blumen Ambraflocken (Ambrosial petal of sweet flowers), the singer making up for somewhat blurred articulation throughout by some shining, stratospheric decoration of the penultimate line “I will soar Heavenward and sing praises”, followed by an oddly sombre and agitated setting of In dem Angenehmen Büschenand (In the pleasant thickets), the music sounding more disturbed than tranquil, with an undertow of unrest even through the more settled tones of “Dann erhebt sich in der Brust” (Then in my breast my contented spirit).

Fortunately, the concluding aria Meine Seele made amends, Becker’s voice taking to its exaltations with buoyancy and openness – a lovely, more circumspect moment at “Horen nur, Hark!” placing Creation’s delight in a more thoughtful, metaphysical context, before returning to the leaping joy of “Alles jauchzet, alles lacht” at the end. Delight in the music,in the singing and playing, and in the beauties of the venue (despite the slightly over-generous ambience already alluded to) gave this concert the kind of distinction which did the Historical Arts Trust’s purposes full justice.

Felix the Quartet opens the Sunday series emphatically

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Psathas: A Cool Wind; Sibelius: String Quartet in D minor, ‘Voces intimae’; Beethoven: String Quartet in F, Op 59 No 1

Vesa-Matti Leppänen and Rebecca Struthers (violins), Andrew Thomson (viola), Rowan Prior (cello)

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall

Sunday 26 June, 3pm

Felix the Quartet, which is drawn from string players of the NZSO, has been going for more than a decade. Former concertmaster Wilma Smith was a founding member and her place was taken by incoming concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen. If players of this calibre had been playing together as a full-time quartet over that time, I suspect the impact of their performances would be a little more uniformly well integrated and arresting then it sometimes is.

The first half of the concert, comprising Psathas’s A Cool Wind and Sibelius’s only mature quartet was somewhat unexciting, due partly to the music itself. Psathas’s piece is a subdued piece, inspired by the player of an Armenian wind instrument, the duduk. It inspired a meditative strain which persisted throughout both its sections, apart from a modest call to attention at the end of an introductory passage.

A modal character coloured a good deal of the writing, though the nasal quality of the duduk, mentioned by the composer, was scarcely audible. Hints of a Balkan melodic flavour, which may well be characteristic of the Caucasus region too, lent it an air of serious melancholy. A melody of sorts that first appeared on the first violin, passed from one instrument to another, over a pervasive rocking, two note motif; it found its most distinctive expression briefly on the viola. After the ‘call to attention’, the textures became more complex in an imperceptible, unobtrusive way, and led the listener onward without effort. I half expected the second movement to introduce a new tone, but the mood and the motifs and their accompanying devices recurred in substantially similar character, perhaps with certain modifications to the melodic ideas. Nevertheless, it provides cheering evidence of a Psathas other than a master of percussion-strong orchestral scores.

The shifting of the Sibelius quartet to the first half meant, as I remarked above, a too unrelieved melancholy quality throughout. Only the end of the last movement really raises the temperature from its series of varied but dispiriting and not very memorable melodies. That is in spite of the expectation in the scherzo-like second movement and the fourth movement, Allegretto, of greater liveliness, through their more emphatic rhythms. But the austerity of the music itself makes that difficult to achieve in spite of playing that was often on the verge of introducing more emotionally involving episodes. The heart-warming experiences of evolving, modulating ostinati that bring excitement and drama to most of the symphonies are sometimes hinted at but never realized.

The Allegro finale does inject a rather splendid stretto-style accelerando which perhaps leaves listeners with a happy impression, but for me it is too little, too late. However, I heard some appreciative remarks about the piece, and particularly about its performance, which was indeed a thoughtful and well-studied interpretation of this product of one of the more somber periods in Sibelius’s life.

The first of the three Razumovsky quartets filled the second half and seemed to me, at least, fully to have justified the whole concert. The opening bars from first violin and eventually more important cello set the tone of the entire performance, driven by high spirits, optimism, energy, and played with singular attention to detail, to dynamic nuances. The viola managed to secure some of the focus with the second subject, but that was only a passing phase as the principal theme again dominated the coda.

Though Rowan Prior’s lovely cello also opened the second movement, a more equitable distribution of responsibility followed as the first theme passes to second violin, then the viola to first violin: this is a most intriguing movement which Felix brought splendidly to life. The slow movement, in F minor, though essentially desolate in tone, the players never allowed to become less than deeply moving; at its end the first violin surreptitiously leads in to the finale. To me, the entire last movement seems to be a coda to the Adagio, never quite insisting on its own independence in spite of its sonata-form structure; it’s like a series of perorations that the composer cannot bear to allow to wind up.

For all the revelations and subtleties that the players brought to the two works in the first half, it was the Beethoven that, inevitably I guess, was the most persuasive, both as a musical masterpiece and in its performance, and it left the audience with a sense of complete fulfillment.

Romeo and Juliet – beautiful but cool from Inkinen and the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ROMEO AND JULIET – Music by Tchaikovsky, Berlioz and Prokofiev

Pietari Inkinen (conductor) / New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

British comedians Michael Flanders and Donald Swann penned a number called “A Friendly Duet” for their successful 1960s revue At The Drop of Another Hat, a song containing references to various famous pairs of lovers in history and literature – including, of  course, Romeo and Juliet :

No romance, said Juliet,

I haven’t left school yet,

We’re friends – just friends!

Throughout much of the first half of the NZSO’s Romeo and Juliet concert, which featured the music of Tchaikovsky and Berlioz, I couldn’t help thinking of the Flanders-and-Swann song – the clean-cut, beautifully-modulated and expertly-delivered orchestral playing presided over by maestro Pietari Inkinen impressed on a great many counts, but seemed to me to keep at arm’s length what the publicity associated with the concert emphasized as its essential component – that sadly “done-to-death” concept, passion. True, the right instincts seemed to be closely associated with the venture – the programme notes for the concert spoke of “frenetic music” and “burning passion” (Tchaikovsky), and “unbridled energy” (Berlioz),  while Inkinen and the orchestra achieved in both pieces miracles of evocation and atmosphere with certain episodes, passages that took away one’s breath with the beauty and subtlety of the sounds. However, both Tchaikovsky’s and Berlioz’s music, for me, exemplify romantic expression in its totality, where beauty and subtlety vie with full-blooded extremes of feeling – and I didn’t feel those extremities were sufficiently explored. In quoting Flanders and Swann I’ve obviously exaggerated the touches of inhibition throughout the performances, but for whatever reason, the impression remains of emotion contained rather than given sufficient expressive rein.

I must say, at this point, that in the wake of the conductor’s and orchestra’s recent overwhelming performances of the Mahler Sixth Symphony, I was hoping for more along the same lines with Tchaikovsky et al., playing that expressed the music’s innate volatility and passion (that word, again!). Sadly, it didn’t fire on Saturday night in the way that the Mahler did for me – though I’ve been wondering whether Inkinen’s success with the latter work reflected more his (laudable) punctilious care regarding detail and his players’ strict observance of Mahler’s detailed directions in the score, and less any deep-seated emotional connection on his part with the music. If so, it suggests a cerebral approach to music-making – not a bad thing with music whose appeal stems mostly from its structure, logic and precise detailing, but more problematic with works that make their impact via emotional heft. That’s not to say that the thinking interpreter’s Tchaikovsky or Berlioz can’t work – but in place of the searing “muse of fire” there needs to be, in my opinion, equally razor-sharp focus of thought and action, however unromantic. That’s what I felt we got with Inkinen’s Mahler, but, sadly not sufficiently in evidence here.

What did work during the concert’s first half were a number of extremely focused moments – the fine gradations of tone and colour in the opening “Friar Laurence” section of the Tchaikovsky overture, the beautiful blend of strings and cor anglais (Michael Austin) for the first appearance of the famous “love-theme” (winds doing an equally heartfelt job of the tune’s songful repetition), and the strings” full-throated recapitulation of the theme just before the death-throes of the “star-crossed lovers”. But, expertly drilled though the fight music was, I didn’t think the orchestral flare-ups angry and incisive enough, so that the bitterness and hatred between the warring families didn’t sufficiently presage the tragedy. As for the Berlioz, I thought it odd that the selection of orchestral exerpts made here almost completely avoided the two salient themes of the story – the conflict between the families, and the lovers themselves. So instead of Berlioz’s furious and tumultuous introduction, we began with Romeo alone just before the Capulet’s Ball, and ended with one of Berlioz’s most amazing orchestral evocations, the Queen Mab Scherzo. This actually was the performance’s highlight for me, with Inkinen and his players weaving patterns of gossamer magic through which the most delicately-voiced rhythmic impulses darted this way and that, beguiling the senses with the elfin transparency of it all – a treasurable episode of pure orchestral alchemy. And what a telling evocation towards the end of the soldier’s dream of “drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes…” with deep, menacing sounds louring out of the dark! It was playing whose delight all but made amends for what I thought was a somewhat dull Capulet’s Ball, lacking that last ounce of sheer momentum, of youthful exuberance in the performance that would have readily conveyed that “unbridled energy” cited in the program notes.

In general, the Romeo and Juliet of Prokofiev fared better in Inkinen’s hands, even though the famous pungent crescendi and jagged chords introducing the Dance of the Capulet Knights were despatched quickly and sharply, the effect being taut and terse, or short-winded and literal, depending upon your point of view. I liked the savage tread of the Knights during their dance, however, magnificently underpinned by the heavy brass, and in particular the tuba (superbly played by Andrew Jarvis). The contrasting episode had little mystery and atmosphere, though – more a dancer’s than a listener’s performance. Happily, Young Juliet, which followed, was quite lovely, with solo playing to die for from clarinet (Phil Green), flute (Bridget Douglas) and ‘cello (Andrew Joyce). In fact the solo playing throughout the concert was near-impeccable – deft trumpet and oboe solos from Cheryl Hollinger and Robert Orr in the street scenes come readily to mind as do Nancy Luther’s silvery, nostalgic piccolo echoings at the very end. Again, it was the lighter, more graceful and lyrical aspects of the score that inkinen and his players more readily and successfully brought out, whereas The Death of Tybalt, though rumbustious and exciting at a certain level had no real cutting edge – more like children excitedly playing at war rather than the real, deadly thing. And what is the point of music such as this if it doesn’t convey “hurt” in the playing and listening?

Mention of the marvellous work done by the orchestra’s stellar line-up of soloists brings me to the sadness of acknowledging the last appearance on the NZSO platform of one of the greatest of them all – principal horn Ed Allen. He was appropriately farewelled by a speech from orchestral leader Vesa-Matti Leppänen which brought forth tumultuous audience applause accompanying a standing ovation for Allen, a kiss and a bouquet presented by his double-bass player partner Vicki Jones, and an affectionate hug from his conductor Pietari Inkinen. He will be greatly missed.

Medlyn and Greager Liederabend at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Liederabend: A recital of Schubert, Wolf and Strauss

Margaret Medlyn and Richard Greager, accompanied by Bruce Greenfield

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University

Thursday, 23 June 2011, 7.30pm

An enthusiastic and appreciative, though not large, audience greeted these three very experienced and accomplished musicians.  It was a treat to have a substantial lieder recital like this – and only a day after senior students of the New Zealand School of Music performed lieder at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace.

The programme began with Richard Greager and Bruce Greenfield performing six of Schubert’s songs: some well-known, such as the opening An Sylvia and others less familiar.

In the carpeted Hunter Council Chamber, and with such experienced performers, the piano could be played with the lid on the long stick, in contrast to the different situation at St. Andrew’s on The
Terrace the previous day.

Greager sang An Sylvia apparently effortlessly, in most a musical performance, though perhaps lacking a little subtlety in this German translation of Shakespeare’s incomparable words.

The next song, Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren (Boatman’s song to the Dioscuri) featured the lovely darker colours of Richard Greager’s lower notes, while Greenfield brought out much in the marvellous accompaniment.  It was interesting that this and three others of the six songs featured water, a point of comment in regarding the Schubert , the previous day.

Im Frühling sounded a little prosaic – as if the singer had seen many springs.  In contrast, I found latter part of the performance a little too operatic at times for an innocent song such as this.  Nevertheless, Greager demonstrated amply how to use words as part of the musical expression, yet not interfere with the flow of the music.

Fischerweise (Fisherman’s ditty) had both performers (Greager and Greenfield) giving a thorough exposition of the words, as set by Schubert, of another watery song – in subject, not in presentation.

Auf Der Bruck (At Bruck), being about a ride on a horse, naturally had the clip-clop of horses’ hooves in the accompaniment.  It was a strong and vigorous interpretation of this demanding song, from both musicians, who reached a considerable volume, compared with some of the more contemplative songs, such as the final Schubert one, Der Jüngling an der Quelle (The youth by the spring).  This was a real contrast.  Although the tenor’s voice is perhaps not what it was, the song was performed with real artistry.  The accompaniment, as elsewhere, was very descriptive and quite beautiful, though apparently simple.

After the break we moved to Hugo Wolf’s settings of Eduard Mörike’s poems.  Wolf was far from being the only composer to set his perceptive and sensitive poetry. The music entailed a considerable change of character from that of Schubert.  Expressiveness poured from every syllable of Margaret Medlyn’s performance of Der Genesene an die Hoffunung (A convalescent’s address to hope). The clarity of the piano part was particularly notable.  Medlyn employs more facial expression and gesture than does Greager, and it seemed to me that this did not suit the songs well, nor did these songs suit her as well as did the later Strauss lieder. Richard Greager sang the following
Auf eine Wanderung (On a walk) with great liveliness.  The modulations in the piano part were largely responsible for making this a very varied song.  It was a wonderful, accompaniment,
walking quickly along with the singer; both introduced a variety of different colours.

The words of Gesang Weylas (Weyla’s song) spoke of radiance. Medlyn’s voice summoned that radiance as much as the arpeggio accompaniment did. Greager sang Der Tambour (The drummer boy); a highly wrought song that made me wonder if Wolf did not rather over-modulate, creating a fevered effect.  Greager sang the words so meaningfully that the audience was drawn in – a sign perhaps of his long experience as an opera singer.  He continued with Gebet (Prayer), which created a wonderful atmosphere through its solemnity, stillness, and four-part harmonies.

Margaret Medlyn returned with An den Schlaf (To sleep), in which the accompaniment pointed up the ambiguity of the words about sleep, dying and living.  She followed this with Elfenlied (Elf song), which featured rapid elfin-like steps in the piano part, requiring a lot of rapid finger-work.  Medlyn made the humour of the song very clear: the elf’s foolish mistakes because he had not had enough sleep.

Richard Greager’s Neue liebe (New love) in its contemplation of a relationship with God, I found rather too loud in the relatively small auditorium.

A very dramatic presentation by Margaret Medlyn of Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens (A girl’s first love song) seemed rather too biting for a first love song; I thought it should have been rather more innocent.  Granted, it had a startling accompaniment. Questioning innocence in both the
accompaniment and in Richard Greager’s eyes featured in Peregrina I, while in Peregrina II, there was the same questing figure in the dreamy accompaniment.  The singer used his breath as an expressive device to good effect.

The final song, Im Frühling (In the Spring) had an interesting piano part, easily as important as the voice’s music.  Medlyn was in great vocal form, the subtlety of her singing matching the
subtlety of the words and music.

Now for something completely different: Richard Strauss songs, all sung by Margaret Medlyn.  As her programme note pointed out, the piano parts seemed to be ‘conceived with an orchestral palette in mind.’  Who better than Bruce Greenfield, accustomed over many years to playing orchestral reductions of operas, to be the accompanist? Befreit (Release) had the singer carry the lines forward most beautifully.  The third verse, about being freed from sorrow at the death of the spouse, was very emotional, and very well sung.  The next was a more straightforward song: Gefunden (Found).  Like the other Strauss songs, this suited Medlyn.  This one gave lovely opportunity for her to journey through her vocal range.

In Blindenklage (Blind man’s lament) a dramatic song, I found Medlyn’s acting out the drama with gesture a little hard to watch; I would have preferred less gesture.  Greenfield displayed masterful playing of these difficult Strauss scores.

Mit deinen blauen Augen (With your blue eyes) was sung quite beautifully, and was a welcome pause between the two highly dramatic and fervent songs around it.  It was much simpler melodically and in the piano part, but quite delightful.  As elsewhere, Medlyn sang with emotional generosity.

Finally, we had Frühlinsfeier (Spring celebration).   The conflicting emotions portrayed were emphasised with switches between major and minor tonalities.  This made for complicated music, and operatic-style anguish.  The final sensational lines on the death of Adonis was an appropriate point of finality at which to end the recital.

This was a beautifully put-together programme of contrasting composers’ settings of fine poetry.  The singers used the printed scores for the most part.  But this in no way inhibited their fine performances.  The printed programmes contained translations of all the songs – and it was good to see the translators credited as well as the poets. 

The singers had also provided interesting notes about each of the three composers and their songs.  Illustrations comprised portraits of the three composers, and two apt paintings by Caspar Friedrich (1774-1840).  The recital represented  a tour de force on the part of accompanist par excellence, Bruce Greenfield.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talented students in wonderful Lieder recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Lunchtime Lieder : a concert of German Romantic songs by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms

Bridget Costello and Amelia Ryman (sopranos), Kieran Rayner and Thomas Barker (baritones), Martin Ryman (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 22 June 2011, 12.15pm

With an interesting programme, this concert had added appeal for the opportunity to hear and see students from the New Zealand School of Music performing lieder.

So much the better that the singers were accompanied by an accompanist marked by sensitive and musical playing; the piano lid being on the short stick seemed just right when the accompanying was in the hands of Martin Ryman.

A first impression from the opening Mendelssohn duet, ‘Gruss’, sung by the two women, was the good projection of the voices and the excellent German words. I have an old and treasured, recording of Victoria de los Angeles and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf singing this duet with Gerald Moore accompanying. It would be hard to say that these young women were inferior!

The men sang ‘Wasserfahrt’ by the same composer as their duet. This introduced the subject of water, which was the theme of about half the songs on the programme. Rayner and Barker both have robust, well-produced voices. They made both these songs really alive.

We then turned to Schubert, beginning with the well-known ’Wohin?’ (surely ‘Whither?’ is a more poetic, if slightly archaic, translation than ‘Where to?’?). Kieran Rayner’s excellent diction and projection were complemented by lovely dynamic shading. A couple of times he sang a tiny bit sharp, but overall it was a great performance; he could teach some more experienced singers about enunciation.

I was pleased to find such an emphasis on getting the words over, and providing the meaning to the audience from very good programme notes, written by the performers. Some lieder singers (and audiences) think it’s all about music and melody, whereas lieder is a marriage between poetry and music. The music conveys the meaning of the words; it is not there just to make a lovely sound. Hence my dislike of being plunged into the dark, or semi-dark at some concerts, so that the words or the programme notes cannot be read. It would have been great to have had the words printed in full, but good programme notes are the next best thing.

‘Am Feierabend’ (not ‘Fierabend’ as in the programme) was Rayner’s next song. He characterised well the young apprentice lad, and then changed his tone and mode of delivery to be the master miller, most effectively.

Amelia Ryman sang ‘Im Frühling’ very feelingly. She has a clear voice and varies her expressiveness appropriately.

Thomas Barker followed with ‘Der Schiffer’ (The Boatn’), with great vigour. This was the only song where the performer had to rely to some extent on the printed music. Martin Ryman brought out the busy accompaniment superbly, as elsewhere.

Bridget Costello returned to sing the beautiful ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’. This was not quite so satisfactory. The note couplets were frequently rushed, and not made distinct as in the accompaniment. It’s great to get the consonants over clearly, but they should not cut up the legato of a song as they did here.

‘Am bach im Frühling’ was given very characterful singing by Thomas Barker, and his German pronunciation was excellent. Consonants were given their place, but they were not overdone.

The singers took a break while Martin Ryman played Brahms’s Intermezzo Op.118 no.2. It was delightful to hear one of these shorter piano pieces – and one of such charm; piano recitals tend to be made up of more substantial works.

Now we were in Brahms territory, and Bridget Costello was next up, to sing his Lament ‘Ach mir fehlt’. Consonants were not a problem this time. Some movement of the arms and legs seemed unnecessary to me (I known there are more than one school of thought about this semi-acting of lieder.) Altogether, the song was tellingly performed.

Now for a really humorous song, which could take its little bit of acting from Amelia Ryman: ‘Vergebliches Ständchen’, translated here as ‘The vain suit’. Nevertheless, most of the meaning and characterisation came through the voice. There was occasional variability of intonation, but it was slight, and the voice itself was very secure.

The concert ended with a quartet by Schubert: ‘Der Tanz’. It was a vigorous finale to a wonderful programme.

The voice students of the New Zealand School of Music seem to get better and better each year. They obviously have talent and work hard, and show what first-class teaching they receive.

The good attendance demonstrates that audiences want to hear lieder – many of the people were not St. Andrew’s ‘regulars’. Let’s have more!

Top German Youth Choir on tour – revelations

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Youth choir concert: Christophorus-Kantorei from Germany

Tawa College Hall

7.30pm, Monday, 20 June 2011

Christophorus Kantorei is a choir from a high school in Altensteig in the Black Forest in Germany. The choir has become renowned for its excellence, and the singers tour overseas every four years. Our good fortune was that at present two of the 60 singers are from Tawa, while their father, who organised this tour, works in Germany.

The conductor, Michael Nonnenmann, is a tall, genial gentleman, who had the singers at the tips of his fingers. With the choir and their conductor (all of whom are billeted locally while on their New Zealand tour) were their voice trainer, a tenor, and his wife, a pianist and organist. As well as these tours to other countries, the choir sings many times each year in Germany, has won many international competitions and made numerous CDs.

The choir has a large and very varied repertoire; out of an extensive list of works in the printed programme, in which the German items were translated into English, a selection of 19 was performed, all a capella.

First up was William Byrd’s ‘Sing Joyfully’, one of quite a number of items in English. (As well as German and English, we heard items in Latin, French and Maori). Immediately one was struck by the very clear but full-toned sound, the immaculate rhythm and how all the singers started and stopped absolutely together. The voices were well produced and resonant.

After a short item in Latin by Viadana, we heard a very effective and dramatic piece by Rudolf Mauersberger, written after the destruction of the beautiful city of Dresden toward the end of World War II. The words were taken from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, but were utterly apt for the desolation left by the bombers. The choir began with an appropriate covered, mournful tone. The singing was very precise, and there were some very fine solo verses.

‘Laudate Omnes Gentes’ by Jacques Berthier, who died in 1994, followed. For this piece the singers were spread round the perimeter of the hall. A solo soprano started and others joined in, part by part, from memory. Its simple repeated phrases led my companion to surmise that it was a Taizé chant, and Wikipedia confirms that the composer wrote much for the Taizé community. It was followed by a very gentle ‘Notre Père’ by Maurice Duruflé, also sung from memory. The singing was well forward in the mouth, and the balance, as elsewhere, was splendid. The piece featured delicate pianissimo singing of great beauty.

I did not know the name Z. Randall Stroope, but he is a contemporary American composer, and ‘The Conversion of Saul’ is a very recent work. The choir rearranged itself for this song, and for many of the items; sometimes this was done in less than a smooth, well-organised way. The piece’s words described Saul’s mission before his conversion “Murder, harass, bind into chains”; these were set in most dramatic fashion, at first in what sounded to me like mediaeval Latin (reminiscent of language in Orff’s Carmina Burana.) There was plenty of fortissimo and emphasis.

This was followed by a ‘Kyrie’ not found in the printed programme. It was apparently by a modern composer, and demonstrated well the choir’s great control of dynamics, and its exquisite tone. Here, the wonderful blend of the choir was especially on show, and the strong movement between chords, which included many discords. The unanimity of sound was achieved by all vowels being absolutely matched; never tight, but open sounds. This was not through unnecessarily wide open mouths, but by the careful shaping of sounds and the use of resonance.

Not every choir sings so well when singing loudly, but here it was excellent, as in the next item ‘Daemon Irrepit Callidus’ by György Orbàn, a Romanian contemporary composer. This started with staccato singing, later alternating with legato. In the men’s solos I heard almost the only slight lapse from good tone and intonation. Generally, the excellence, liveliness, and total commitment of the choir members were exemplary, given that this was their eighth concert around the North Island in nine days. There will be one on each of the next three days; one day off, then three more!

One of the longer pieces came next: ‘Warning to the Rich’ by Thomas Jennefelt, a Swedish composer, written in 1977. This was in English, but it was very useful to have the words printed. It employed sprechgesang (ironic to use a German term for a performance in English by a German choir!) or speak-singing. At the beginning, it was in whispered tones, becoming louder from the men, while the women changed to an Aw sound from their earlier humming. In the second verse all sang the words; later there was sprechgesang again. This was not the only item to make great technical demands, but the singers knew the work very well, and most glanced at their printed scores only occasionally. It was an extremely telling and thrilling work, based on verses from the New Testament: James chapters 4 and 5.

There was no interval as such (we could have done with time to stretch the legs, being seated on school plastic chairs), although the choir had a break. During it, the choir’s voice tutor, Eberhard Schuler-Meybier, a tenor, sang lieder, to his wife Susanne’s excellent piano accompaniment. It was wonderful to hear the opening few songs and a later one from Robert Schumann’s cycle Dichterliebe. Unfortunately we seldom hear lieder these days. I’m told it’s true of big cities like London also, not just Wellington. These songs were preceded by a German setting of ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, and followed by Schubert’s famous ‘The Trout’. The tenor has a fine voice if not the smoothest tone, and communicated the songs well, singing the words sensitively. The higher notes in ‘The Trout’ were a little strident at fortissimo.

Shorter items followed in the second half, which began with Ward Swingle’s exciting arrangement of ‘Pastime with good company’. One young man imitated a shawm while all processed in. All items in this half were sung without the scores.

Next was ‘Il est bel et bon’, a delightful sixteenth century piece which incorporated some ‘choralography’ (choreography for singers; a term I learnt at The Big Sing ten days ago), as did many of the items in this half.

Two German folksongs were similarly treated to actions, and were sung in very lively and interesting arrangements. ‘Als wir jüngst in Regensburg waren’ was very rhythmic, with tricky timing. The young woman from the choir who announced the items gave us the ‘low-down’ on the story of this song, which involved quite a lot of acting on the part of the choir.

Mike Brewer is a British choral conductor who has visited New Zealand many times; his intriguing arrangement of ‘Pokarekare ana’, was a pleasure to hear. Even if all the vowels were not quite Maori, the choir members all made them the same way, resulting in their usual purity of tone.

We then visited the USA for Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, which was sung in an authentic American accent and manner, solo and all.

Now for some humour: ‘Short People’ by Randy Newman, arranged by English choral conductor and former King’s Singer Simon Carrington (in New Zealand eighteen months ago for ‘Sing Aotearoa’ in Rotorua) was very slick, incorporating two male soloists, and entered into fully by choir and audience, thanks to very clear words.

The concert ended with some magic: ‘The magic paint brush’ by contemporary Danish composer John Høybye, a brilliant, intricate piece, superbly sung, incorporating a lot of clapping, slapping and stamping, and ‘Magic Song’ by Ray Murray Schafer (a prolific Canadian composer, born in 1933), which incorporated a lot of different techniques, both vocal and physical.

Finally, a hotly demanded encore: Moses Hogan’s quite complex arrangement of ‘Joshua fit the battle of Jericho’ sung with huge energy and style.

It is a pity there was not a larger audience to hear this superb concert, especially that there were not many more students from Tawa College, whose choirs did so well very recently in the Wellington Region Big Sing. They could have been inspired and educated by hearing such accomplished choral singers as the members of Christophorus-Kantorei.

If you are in Wellington and read this in time, do go to St. Peter’s Church on Willis Street Tuesday, 21 June at 7.30pm, when the choir will perform again. Or hear the choir in Nelson, 22 June; Blenheim, 23 June; Dunedin, 25 June; Timaru, 26 June; Christchurch, 27 June.

Diedre Irons – piano pleasures at Waikanae

Posted on by Peter Mechen

DIEDRE IRONS  (piano)

– presented by the Waikanae Music Society Inc.

BEETHOVEN – Piano Sonata in C Op.2 No.3

CHOPIN – 2 Nocturnes Op.27 / Fantasy in F Minor

WHITEHEAD – Tūmanako: Journey through an unknown landscape

RAVEL – Le Tombeau de Couperin

Memorial Hall, Waikanae

Sunday 19th June 2011

To describe Diedre Irons’ piano playing as “thoroughly engaging” might seem to some too much of an all-purpose, over-generalized comment, out-of-step with more serious analysis of the kind one associates with a “proper” review. However, I think this quality of engagement is intrinsic to any discussion of a musician’s work as a performer in front of an audience. Irons seems incapable of playing a mechanical or dissociated phrase, so that for me it seems to all flow like life-blood, activating and sustaining for the listener whole worlds of feelings, ideas, impulses and actions.

In my ideal world I would want to hear Diedre Irons play all the Beethoven piano sonatas – I know that the great Rachmaninov once said that he didn’t play many of these works because “the Beethoven sonatas contain everything, and no one pianist can play everything”…..but I’ve often thanked my lucky stars that musicians such as Schnabel, Kempff, Arrau, and Barenboim (and, of course, our own Michael Houstoun), to name but a few, have ignored Rachmaninov’s dictum and performed them all, both in public and on record. Yes, Rachmaninov was right, in the sense that, as Artur Schnabel famously said, “These are works that are better than can ever be played”, and any pianist who essays the complete set of them has to cover an enormous technical, intellectual and emotional range of responses. But it can be done most rewardingly, and on the evidence of Irons’ playing for us the delicious C Major Op.2 No.3 Sonata with what seemed like a comprehensive grasp of the work’s expressive possibilities, I would welcome hearing more from her – in fact, as many as she wants to play.

Within just a few measures of the music’s opening, Irons had generously given us as many shades of expression as would a gifted Shakespearean actor on stage in one of the plays. Each note took on a meaning of its own, the phrases enlivened, the paragraphs taking us on a journey whose course featured many details of continuity and contrast, as befitted the work of a young, and wanting-to-impress composer. Irons brought forth warm, enthusiastic accents rather than overtly muscular contrasts, so that the music often smiled, and the minor-key exertions sallied forth beneath a firm, but elastic touch. Towards the end of the movement, from the recitative-like passages came an adroitly-pedalled foretaste of both the Tempest and Waldstein Sonatas, the pianist bringing out the work’s connections within a more widely-spanned context in a totally natural and unforced way.

The remainder of the sonata similarly enchanted us – a guarded, somewhat understated second-movement opening grew towards a marriage of delicacy and resonance, the right-handed figurations dancing over the step-wise columns rising from the bass regions; while Irons nicely contrasted the third movement’s interplay of mischievous and vertiginous trajectories with those wonderfully rolling arpeggiations in the trio. Contrast was also the order of the day for the finale, the gentle playfulness of Irons’ delivery of the opening a perfect foil for the grand and heroic second subject – a case of humor and delicacy alternating with bigger-boned statements, culminating in a teasing coda and a grand-slam final payoff!

Chopin’s two Op.27 Nocturnes which followed gave an impression of being two different “takes” of a similar view, a night-and-day contrast, for example, the C-sharp Minor all half-lit suggestiveness under Irons’ fingers, a shade exotic in its lyrical character, the opening sharply brought into focus with urgent toccata-like chordings, whose impulses of energy dissipate almost as rapidly as they rise up, allowing a “homecoming” coda of great beauty to steal in over the final bars. No such exoticisms trouble the second Nocturne in D-flat, whose more overly vocal lines describe an archway of melodic beauty and intensity, echoed by a “dying fall” as affecting in its way as its companion’s. Both works were here brought to life, not only as companions but as entities in themselves.

Insightful programming had the great Fantasy in F Minor placed after the two Nocturnes, with the audience taking up its cue and allowing the pianist an unbroken path towards the new work’s first sounds – the expectant tread of the opening in keeping with the composer’s intention of taking his listeners to the heart of a world of spontaneously-conceived feeling and incident. Very much like a Polish version of the Hungarian “lassu” at the beginning, the Fantasy then sweeps into and through episodes of vivid storytelling, Irons revelling in particular episodes such as the “storm and stress” arpeggiated flourishes, some magical arabesques of transformation, and then a hymn-like, almost devotional rapture, the whole quite Lisztian in its range and scope, though still Chopinesque in accent throughout.

I’d heard Gillian Whitehead’s Tūmanako: Journey through an unknown landscape on a previous occasion, at the “Sounztender” concert in May of last year, played by the same pianist. In a concert with established classics, the piece took on a different “feeling” for me to what it did on the previous occasion when played alongside some of its contemporaries. This time round the music seemed to me more abstract in effect than before, the result, perhaps, of my bringing some kind of expectation to the performance of the “we’ve heard the sounds – now, how well do they cohere?” variety. At the outset there were vast spaces, created as much by wide leaps between resonating notes as by the frequent silences, from which came various impressions of fleeting encounters, cascades of bitter-sweet arpeggiations, chordal evocations, cries of birds and other nature sounds, both tumbling downwards and taking flight. In places I felt a sense of reverence and an awareness of ritual, a feeling advanced by full-throated, bell-like soundings of things paying a kind of homage to a state of being, and an activation of the spirit.

A different kind of evocation came from Ravel in his Le Tombeau de Couperin, a tribute from one French master to the work of another. It took me a while to get onto the performance’s wavelength, to my surprise – although Irons played the Prelude with suitably motoric impulse, the dynamic terracings for me somehow lacked light and shade, the hall’s lack of resonance perhaps to blame for an ambience more clear-eyed than atmospheric. Only with the deliciously bitter-sweet Forlane did I begin to make connections with it all, increasingly beguiled by the changing faces of the music’s droll, but suggestive “revolve”. Irons gave the Rigadoun’s opening plenty of jack-in-the-box energy, nudging the succeeding trio episode along, with its deliciously “limping” rhythms, before the opening orchestrally crashes back. And nowhere was Ravel’s wistful mix of artifice and feeling more beautifully conveyed by Irons than in the Menuet’s astringent strains, the mask hiding the composer’s true feelings never more apparent. I thought the pianist resisted the blandishments of sheer virtuosity with the concluding Toccata, her rhythmic trajectories instead enabling the piece’s tempo fluctuations to grow out of one another and have a cumulative effect of energy and brilliance.

A Debussy piece to finish help return us to our lives – the audience’s appreciation of and regard for Diedre Irons’ playing was, at the end, a pleasure to join in with.

NZSM viola students shine at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

String students of the New Zealand School of Music – mainly viola students of Gillian Ansellof the New Zealand String Quartet

St Andrews’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 15 June, 12.15pm

The interest of these concerts from students rests as much with the experience of hearing gifted though partly-formed players, as with hearing music that is rarely heard at ordinary concerts. I sometimes hear somewhat condescending critical remarks from people who see concerts as opportunities to display their own knowledge and imagined refined taste and discernment.  The real pleasure however lies in the revelations that one can derive from listening sympathetically to performances that are a little less than perfect or ideal in terms of technique, style and interpretative overview.  They often throw more light on the nature of a piece than a performance that’s perfect.

One of the two familiar pieces on the programme was part of a Bach cello suite – the Prelude and Allemande from the Third Suite in C, arranged for viola. Naturally, the opening phrases arrived as a surprise, no matter how much one was prepared for it (and I had heard the suites played on the viola before).  For some reason, the tone was bolder and more strongly projected that I’d expected, a matter of the character of the instrument played by Vincent Hardaker, as much as his particular view of the music, which may have continued at a more uniform dynamic level and tempo than was ideal. However (he played from memory) it was polished, accurate pitch-wise and elegant in its articulation. He allowed a little more dynamic variety in the Allemande, which was also characterised by a feeling of determination, still displaying signs of the rigorous effort that lay behind its mastery.

There were a couple of concerto excerpts from Mozart contemporaries.  Hoffmeister was a friend of Mozart’s while Karl Stamitz emerged from the family that had created the famous Mannheim court orchestra in the middle of the 18th century and which Mozart hugely admired and whose orchestral characteristics profoundly influenced him.

Hoffmeister was not merely a musical friend of Mozart; his name is perhaps better remembered, attached to the K 499 string quartet that he published.  He composed many concertos for many instruments. Alice McIvor played the first two movements of his viola concerto in D, accompanied by Douglas Mews. With the score before her, her playing was fluent and the handling of ornaments relaxed and artless. Her cadenza was confirmation of her basic musical sense, where any slight intonation flaws were a small price to pay for a charming and proficient performance.

The piano introduction to the Stamitz viola concerto served to demonstrate the debt in terms of idiom and style that Mozart owed to his older contemporary, though not in sheer musical inventiveness and beauty. Megan Ward played only the first movement, with surprising ease, meeting its technical challenges stylishly.

The other familiar piece was the first movement of Brahms’s first sonata (for clarinet or viola) Op 120, No 1. I have tended to feel that these two beautiful sonatas of Brahms live more vividly on the clarinet, and here indeed, Leoni Wittchou’s viola sounded somewhat subdued alongside the piano part. Nevertheless, her playing was very engaging, emotionally varied, allowing its calm and languorous qualities to be relished.

The only item that was not primarily for the viola was Dohnanyi’s Serenade in C, Op 10, which has become somewhat popular on account of the rather small repertoire for the string trio, and its intrinsic qualities.   I seem to have heard it several times, most recently at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson and from the Antipodes Trio during the St Andrew’s season of concerts in March (both reviewed on this website).

Alice McIvor returned, after Douglas Mews (without any assistance from students!) had rearranged seats and music stands, with violinist Lydia Harris and cellist Anna-Marie Alloway to play three movements. While the opening Allegro is a bit clunky (to use an unprofessional term), the Romanza and the fourth movement have considerable charm. Though the viola part was very competent and produced some lovely expressive playing in the Romanza, the player who caught my ear at many points was the cellist; in the opening passage her playing was surprisingly subdued, but when the cellist’s role was to lead, a player of great sensibility and easy accomplishment emerged.

The fourth movement is a Theme and Variations where all three players demonstrated technical skill, interpretive insight and impressive musical maturity.

No real allowances had to be made to enjoy the music in this recital, very much testimony to Gillian Ansell’s mentoring, on its own terms.